Difference between Plymouth and Jamestown

Isaac Atayero
Mrs. Mary Anne McElroy
A.P. United States History
10/4/11

Difference Between Jamestown and Plymouth Colonies

 King James I  chartered the Virginia Company and Jamestown Colony was established in 1607 as the first permanent English Colony in the New World. In the early 1500s, about thirteen years later, Plymouth Colony was founded . Jamestown was founded based on financial grounds unlike Plymouth Colony, which was the first colony whose establishment was motivated by religion. Jamestown was located around a swampy area along the James River where there was a climate was warm and the soil 

was fertile. Plymouth Colony was founded off the Massachusettes coast, a location where there was a cod climate and rocky soil.
       Most of the citizens in Jamestown were spares, gold-seeking gentlemen and they were not used to physical work such as hunting or farming . These men had no experience doing this work and no one to  show them how to do it. The Pilgrims were mostly lawyers and doctors but they were helped to adapt with help from the friendly Native Americans. The Plymouth Colony also included a large number of families while Jamestown was occupied mostly by men.  A large number of the settlers in Jamestown were members of the Church of England as opposed to the Puritans who loathed the Church of England and were devout members of the Puritan belief.
             Jamestown became the first royal colony because the company’s charter was revoked in 1624. In the Plymouth Colony, majority rule was the form of self government that was sovereign while in Jamestown, the citizens ran a representative government. The pilgrims in Plymouth created  a document known as the Mayflower Compact, which was a constitution that stated the powers and duties of the government. The citizens in Jamestown established the House of Burgesses in 1619, twelve years after the founding of Jamestown, as the first representative assembly in America.
     Unlike the Indians in Virginia, the Native Americans where the pilgrims landed were very friendly towards the pilgrims. The Indians in Jamestown did not have a very friendly attitude towards the English men in the beginning because of the many attempts by the men to christianize the Indians. The settlers in Plymouth initially did not have to worry about attacks from the Native Americans while the men in Jamestown  were constantly victims of Indian raids.
     Early Jamestown, being a royal colony , financially depended on the crown while Plymouth became self sufficient and financially independent. The Mayflower was supposed to land in Virginia but the pilgrims decided to stay and establish their own colony. Unlike the settlers in Jamestown, the Plymouth setters were considered a threat by religious and political authorities in England.